We enjoyed the freedom of retirement, but as we visited other churches in the area I had such a lost, sad feeling. Then we signed up for a volunteer mission and went to Lands End in upper New York State. This was a Presbyterian retreat center. We lived in a separate building from the lodge with other volunteers and it was a great experience. Warren worked with Jack on maintenance and I was on the kitchen crew with Sue. We served several Elderhostel groups. It was so interesting to get to know many of them, mostly from New York. I even attended a class on Broadway musicals.

Our days off found us exploring the area as well as getting several days off to see Montreal, Canada and spent several days in Vermont. This was a fabulous opportunity to see interesting areas in Saranak Lake (Jane Pauly lives here), and Lake Placid where the Olympics were held one year.

Our second volunteer in mission was at our mission conference in New Wilmington, Pennsylvania. They needed a manager and a registrar, so we took over in March, lived in a house across from campus, and had all our meals at the school cafeteria style. Here again, we enjoyed the job along with the perks of being in this lovely area. We invited Paul and Mary to visit us and loved being able to share this house as well as meals on campus. They had never been in Pennsylvania so it was a thrilling experience for them to explore its beauty and yet be able to relax. I learned how to register everyone on the computer and Warren worked hard on getting it all put together for the nearly 1500 attending. By the time we finished this job we were ready to go home.

Al and Stacy asked us to have lunch one day and explained that they wanted us to remain at John Knox and consider it our church family. We both loved this idea, especially since Pete and Dottie were members. Warren was so concerned, he didn’t want to overstep in any way, as we had seen done in other churches but he got along very well.